1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a terminal for exchanging electronic business cards and a method for the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Instead of giving another person a business card in a paper form, personal information (hereinafter, referred to as business card information) including a name, an organization name, a telephone number, etc., described in the business card is usually brought to other person by using an electronic mail through the Internet. As a data format of the business card information used in Internet communications, “RFC 2426-vCard MIME Directory Profile” 1998 is well known.
The business card information to be transmitted in this data format includes a business card image and a plurality of sets of character strings of personal information to be composed with the image. For example, a business card is displayed on the display screen of a receiving side computer as shown in FIG. 1.
The electronic business card shown in FIG. 1 denotes a business card image 100, a company name 101, a title 102, a personal name 103, a postal code 104, a company address 105, an e-mail address 106, a telephone number 107, and a URL 108. In communications of information on the business card, normally, information including character codes of these pieces of information is received by a receiving side computer. The receiving side computer arranges the character codes of the fields in a predetermined layout, and a converted image is composed with the business card image 100 and displayed on the display screen.
As a result of such a standardization of business card information, it has become possible for electronic business cards to contribute to increased convenience for users in electronic commerce and the like.
A service is known where a user registers business card information as described above in a server computer, and the client computers of the registered user exchange the registered business cards via the server. (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2000-32033)
There is a problem, however, where such data can be easily sniffed out or intercepted by a malicious person on the internet.
A malicious person may, for example, pretend to be another person, and may transmit information or request information. A malicious person may intercept information on the internet so as to sell it, or may disclose or utilize it for the purpose of perpetrating harm. In addition, the malicious person may transfer information for the designated person to an unspecified third party.